AXA Wealth’s platform Elevate has entered into a new long term strategic agreement with technology, transaction and custody services provider FNZ, to provide substantially more proposition support and development.
The new agreement follows extensive IFA market research, which identified four key areas for AXA Wealth’s platform development strategy: improving usability; efficient production maintenance; continuous proposition development; and new initiatives.
The new deal with FNZ has been designed to help Elevate maintain its leadership position and to remain at the forefront of platform design, both in terms of proposition and simplicity. AXA Wealth will also benefit from the equity agreement FNZ has entered into with global growth equity firm General Atlantic, to help fund its on-going development and expansion.
A new contract with FNZ was required to address each of the above development areas, with a focus on:
- a new market-leading development team secured on an exclusive 18 months’ basis
- a greatly enlarged proposition development team put in place, dedicated solely to enhancing the existing platform proposition
- enhanced functionality to transform the customer experience, with a major user interface refresh
- an enhanced production maintenance unit focused on the Elevate platform on an on-going basis.
The above enhancements aim to deliver a service that offers real differentiation and addresses the key criticism from advisers of current wraps being too complex to use.
Mike Kellard, AXA Wealth’s CEO, says: “We carried out a full review of Elevate’s future support requirements, and it became clear that if we are to continue to build on and further improve what we believe is a cutting-edge platform, the existing arrangement needed to be significantly enhanced.
“The new agreement will help shift Elevate to the next important level and help secure its position as a market-leading platform. I am pleased that our partnership with FNZ is strengthening and I am confident that the introduction of an additional investor in General Atlantic will help FNZ support the growth and development of Elevate.”
Adrian Durham. CEO, FNZ, says: “FNZ is very proud of the work we've carried out with AXA Wealth to date - helping to propel Elevate to one of the top platforms in the UK market. This latest phase of delivery will see us continue Elevate’s development and focus on simplicity, ease of use and rich, intuitive functionality."
Elevate’s assets under management have grown significantly over the last 18 months to £3.5bn, becoming one of the fastest growing platforms for 2011 according to Platforum, with sales having grown 75% from 2010 as reported last week. The company believes the new level of dedicated support is fitting for a fast-growing, ambitious and successful business, and the investment into such a contract is a reflection of AXA Wealth’s commitment and confidence in the Elevate platform and in FNZ.
Kellard concludes: “Making Elevate easier to use is key to our future success as it will provide AXA Wealth with significant differentiation in a massively competitive market, and deliver real customer benefit. It will also enable us, in the longer term, to integrate our platform with other software providers, such as back office and planning tool providers, which we anticipate will be another critical success factor in the future platform market.”
|
